50 dead in Albania - Over 10,000 homeless following the earthquake

TIRANA. Prime Minister Edi Rama announced toady that the rescue operation in Albania has now been completed - 41 injured remain in hospital with 3 being taken abroad for special treatment.

30
November/ 2019

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Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced today (30/11) that the number of deaths from Tuesday's earthquake has now risen to 50. He said that the rescue operations have now been completed and 41 injured people are still in hospital. Three have been taken abroad for special treatment.

Mr. Rama also said at this morning's meeting with the government that the victims' families will be accommodated in new houses immediately and declared a state of emergency in the region of Lezhë to the north of Tirana.

International teams have started to inspect damaged buildings today - these include teams from Italy, France and a 16-person team from Greece. According to official Government data, in Tirana alone 1,192 houses and 265 apartment blocks suffered damage and 8 schools are unable to continue with lessons.

In Durrës 19 large estates each housing between 100 and 250 families remain unoccupied.

These figures give an idea of how much damage was done by the earthquake. Prime Minister Rama pointed out that the greatest damage was to recently-built buildings and said this was a result of building violations due to profiteering and greed.

However, despite the scale of the destruction, Rama was confident that the damage will be completely repaired as quickly as possible. He gave as an example the immediate response of the state mechanism to provide accommodation for 2,500 homeless in hotels throughout the country.

The total number of homeless is estimated to be over 10,000, the majority of whom have abandoned the areas that suffered damage and it has also been observed that a very large number of people have left the country.

More and more victims are protesting about the indifference of the state and that aid is not reaching its destination. There are also complaints that the state is directly responsible for the scale of the damage as the responsible services were negligent in applying the proper building laws and regulations.

The geographical area of those affected by the earthquake is also growing and Mr. Rama has been forced to declare a state of emergency in more areas.